Turns out quite a bit of the action is going on right here in Dateline Earth’s stomping grounds, with several Seattle and Vancouver companies mentioned.

And Gies identified what could become a key strategy for developing a business model: It’s not only possible, it’s probably desirable to feed the algae with wastewater polluted with nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen. Think agricultural wastewater, industrial process water. You solve two problems at once.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, it turns out, explored algae from the ’70s to the mid-90s and then — this has got to look like a blunder now — gave up because of budget cuts. Because we’re such a poor country…